Google packages and runs Search, Gmail and its other products/services in a way so they can run in Linux containers in their data centers, officials said. The company developed Kubernetes to help schedule/manage Docker containers. Kubernetes was originally built on top of Google Compute Engine.

This week, Kubernetes got a number of new backers beyond Google, including Red Hat, IBM, CoreOS and as of this week, Microsoft. Microsoft plans to enable Kubernetes capabilities on top of Azure Linux virtual machines, allowing developers who want to use Linux containers and manage them using Kubernetes to use Azure.

Microsoft officials also announced this week support for Docker’s libswarm project, which "offers imperative management on Docker, so that libswarm will natively support Azure in enabling deployment of containers on Azure Virtual Machines," according to a July 10 Microsoft blog post.

Docker is an open-source engine that automates application deployment. It's a platform for developers and systems administrators who want to configure and deploy distributed apps more easily.

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